EastEnders: Niagara Falls - Review: 23.05.2013

At the moment, EastEnders reminds me of the old Abbott and Costello "Niagara Falls" sketch.

You get the feeling that something is about to happen, that there's a storyline about to burst through there somewhere. You wait. And wait. And wait some more ... and then it fizzles out, or ... you wait so long, you forget what you're waiting for, and when it does happen, it doesn't matter anymore.

There's been a lot of Alfie-hate going around the various fora lately, along with a lot of Sharon-hate also.

I'm not the biggest fan of Shane Richie, but I like Alfie Moon, and when he was introduced ten years ago, he was a great character - interesting right from the start, and he complimented Kat in a way which brought her character to a different level. They were a mature couple, for whom the audience could root, someone you wanted to be happy.

Alfie hasn't ruined the Vic. Bryan Kirkwood and his writing room, many of whom are still in action on EastEnders, ruined the Vic, at the same time ruining Alfie and Kat. Kirkwood's Alfie was a doormat, existing only to be abused by Kat, for laughs, of course. Newman's Alfie is just an extension of Shane Richie's character, which isn't what Alfie Moon was originally, and isn't what he should be now.

On his day, Richie is one of the strongest actors on the show, but Newman has got to get away from the lazy temptation of playing him as Shane Richie.

As for Sharon, the people hating on her the most people watching the show - with the possible exception of one hoary old irrelevant troll ...

... who seem to be the biggest Sharon-haters, are people who either started watching the show in 2006 (and wouldn't remember Sharon anyway) or are disillusioned Shannisites, who find it incomprehensible that a love so divine could be so forgotten that Sharon would actually love Phil Mitchell.

Well, those people, Shannisites and weenie tweenies alike, don't realise that the Mitchells were created for Sharon, that they were to be her next level of development, after her parents left/died, and symbolised her transition from girl to woman. In fact, if Tony Jordan had had his way, Sharon would have returned to Walford with Grant's son, not the son of fey Dennis. Or, if Shannis had been allowed to stay longer on the Square with Phil and Grant, Shannis would have wilted like a rose in November.

Sharon Mach III is the result of writers who don't know the character, don't care about the character's history and think that her history and character can be rewritten to fit the story scheme someone is planning to pitch to the teenage demographic and lowest common denominator.

Tonight's episode just maybe saw the beginning of several new storylines. You had to watch hard and you had to pay attention, but maybe ... just maybe ... some of the big storylines Lorraine Newman has been promising us for so long, just might be about to start.

Or else I could be wrong.

As I said ... Lorraine Newman's tenure is a Niagara Falls tenure ... Slowly she turns, step by step, inch by inch ...

Having said all that, this episode was, by far, the best of the week.

One Door Shuts, Another Opens.

Could it be? Have we really seen the end of the Lola-Lexi fiasco?

It would appear so, and - apart from one segment - the end of this overlong storyline provided some of the best scenes in tonight's episode. 

I don't know what's happened, but suddenly, the writing for Sharon and Phil, at least, and Billy, have gone up a gear, especially since last night.

Performance of the night goes to Billy, who seems to have acquired a set of balls from The Magic Negro (probably hers), and finally, finally, stood up to Phil Mitchell after a lifetime of being his dogged acolyte.

And finally, finally a writer puts before the audience what the issue of Lexi has always been for Phil, and Billy articulated it.

Lexi isn't Ben. And she isn't a second chance and an attempt at atonement for Phil with respect to his perceived failure with Ben. Ben was on a hiding to nothing when he arrived in Walford in 2006 and is most likely inherently psychopathic, like his great-uncle Archie and his cousin Ronnie (cue the Ronnie-shipper to crawl from the woodwork with a few choice comments). Above all, as Billy dared to point out to Phil, Lexi isn't Phil's child.

I know this was all about resolving the custody situation, but what I also felt was lost in this situation - especially with Sharon's participation in the supervisory order and its effecting - was that Billy didn't have balls enough to throw back at Phil that he had no real right to sit in judgement of Sharon, calling her a junkie and shouting the odds about that in a public place like the court waiting area and in front of both solicitors. Especially when Phil's a recovering junkie, himself, and less than a year ago, went on a drunk under the pressure of having to hide Ben's involvement in Heather's murder. More than anyone, he should know how stress and pressure can drive an addict to begin to use substances again.

The other downside of Billy is that he seems to have forgotten his own children, substituting Lola as his "baby," in lieu of Janet and William, whom - as Phil pointed out not long ago - Billy never sees. So, ironically, Billy is doing the same with Lola and Lexi as Phil was hoping to do - substitute someone for another. Lexi and Lola become substitutes for William and Janet, like Lexi was going to become a substitute for Ben.

And finally we see hints of the Sharon of old. This is 1990s Stand-Up-to-the-Mitchells Sharon ...

You want evidence that EastEnders was a lot more powerful twenty years ago? Well, cop this scene. Forget about your pithy Polish builder pissing himself at the sight of Amy and Kat and Roxy, watch Grant's lunatic army friend, complete with sawn-off shotgun, hold Grant, Sharon and Michelle hostage and end up shooting Michelle. This is the Sharon of old ...

Lord knows, how this scene and storyline, a culmination of Grant being tempted into a life of crime with an old army buddy, would play out today in Lorraine's Kingdom of Love and Warmth; but tonight, for one brief, shining moment, we saw Sharon stand up, as is her wont, to the Mitchell nemesis, flinging back in Phil's face the real reason she was there at all - for Lexi and Lola, whilst her presence just reinforced Phil's own self-obsession re everything being about him and Sharon.

Hopefully Letitia Dean's character has turned a corner. Just watching this clip reminds me that now, more than ever, the show is crying out for the return of Ross Kemp and all the unfinished business that remains between him, Sharon and Phil.

Forget the psychopathic Ice Queen. Get Grant back.

Especially effective was the scene of Phil, at the end of the day's proceedings, alone in his house, attempting to watch a Western. Believe you me, he wasn't thinking of Shirley; he was missing Lexi, and he was certainly missing Sharon. Another reason for Lexi's presence in Phil's life was the same as Mandy's in Ian's - he's desperately afraid of being alone.

Downsides to This: The involvement of the weenies - Cock, Jay lo castrato and Abi the Dough-Faced Girl. The fact that Abi can go from "Omigod-it's-awesome" shallow breathlessness to a Dot-in-Training sudden sage is mind-boggling. Abi is neither wise nor profound. She's just stupid. In reality, she'd cross the street to avoid a chav like Lola. Odd that her studies take a backseat to this situation, and I'm hoping she fails her exams. Even more unreal was their second appearance, with a bottle of champagne, which isn't cheap, so Phil must be paying Cock and Jay some kind of wage, especially since Jay's affording to live in the B and B, which isn't cheap.

Bringing around booze to celebrate a teenage mother regaining custody of her child isn't the smartest thing to do, especially since Lola's now in charge of Lexi, so it's pretty stupid to think she'd have a few bevvies on Lexi's first night back. Why, she'd be as bad as Sharon the Junkie, wouldn't she?

The other downside was the totally weird "duff-duff," which - of course - was all about love and warmth and cuddles ... and definitely wasn't EastEnders. This is what I mean about losing your brand.

A Tale of Two Slappers.

We had another bonding sequence today between Roxy and Kirsty. 

That Roxy! You gotta love her! She's been bonding all over the place recently - first Kat, now Kirsty. Of course, Roxy thinks Kirsty's pregnant, when Roxy is trying for a baby, herself; and Kirsty knows she's not pregnant, but gives Roxy some twofold advice, with some folic acid to aid in conception and some homespun advice about trying too hard for a baby, because it won't happen.

Kirsty should know. That's what she's been doing, and the pregnancy test is negative again.

But tonight was less about Kirsty's lie (although it's lingering there on the back burner, about to boil over every time Max swears undying love and protection for Kirsty "and the baby" (which isn't there) and more about the phone calls she's been receiving.

It seems her ex, another dodgy man named Carl (as opposed to Corrie's Karl with a K, another dodgy ex of another bottled blonde who, in another life, was Cindy Beale), who's about to be released from prison and who wants to know where Kirsty is.

Max reassures her that Carl won't find her, but you know he will. I mean, if Sam the Sham can hone in on The Magic Negro after an absence of 20 years, then Carl-Baby can simply gravitate to Kirsty after an absence of little more than a year.

Easy peasy.

So we know that we'll be seeing Carl-with-a-C (as opposed to Karl-with-a-K, who - in another life, ironically - was Ian Beale's brief who was charged with battling Cindy for custody of the Beale children) in the near future. 

Why do I have an awful feeling that another love triangle is about to ensue? We'll dispence with Kirsty-Max-Tanya and carry on with Max-Kirsty-Carl.

I can hear a Max and Carl duet ...

(OT, this video is from the Seventies, but doesn't the girl singer look like a young Lindsey Coulson?)

A Menopause in the Making.

Let's continue with the cheesy romance that is Carol and Masood.

On second thought, let's not; because it featured Tiffany, who is neither clever nor cute as she approaches adolescence and who reminds me more and more of a female version of the old Mad magazine's icon, Alfred E Newman ...

(G'wan ... put some red pigtails on the lad and you've got Tiffany) ... and Mowgan Le Fat.

After spending a surreptitious night of passion with Masood (in Zainab's bed, no less), Carol's ready for the family dinner, complete with wineglasses (even though Masood doesn't drink) and candles.

Bianca the Retard immediately asks Carol if she's in love with Masood. Of course, she is. This is Carol, one Yank and they're off. Fuck first and fall in love later. Of course, Carol denies this and bigs up Masood's good qualities - he's kind, gentle and loyal. After all, he was married to one woman for thirty years - even though, in Carol's estimation, Zainab was a cow. (If Zainab's a cow, that must make Carol a rabbit, going  at it like Thumper).

Yes, Masood's kind, gentle and loyal - but it's where his loyalties lie, which annoys Carol ultimately, because Masood stands her up with a bouquet of flowers. It seems Syed and Christian are both ill, and they have Yasmin for the week, so Masood has to shoot off (presumably to Birmingham) and babysit Yasmin, whilst nursing his son and son-in-law back to health). 

So Carol begins to cry. Unexplicably.

Now Bianca the Retard could never put two and two together and wonder why her mother has a sudden rush of hormones to such an extent that she becomes inexplicably emotional. It wouldn't cross the diameter of Bianca the Retard's one brain cell that Carol is fiftysomething and just might be headed toward the dreaded change (which means, with Carol's temper, the kids should all wear cycling helmets around the house).

Nope, Bianca the Retard offers a sound assessment ... this is what happens when you put out too soon. My godfathers! That a child would have to offer advice like that to a mother.

Whoop-de-doo ... a story about the menopause for Carol If that's the best they have to offer Lindsey Coulson, then the actress should just leave now. And if you think David Wicks, if he does return, will settle for a menopausal granny, think again. He won't.

Alice the Goon.

Instead of Alice mmm-mmming "I Love Popeye," I reckon this Alice the Goon goes about every day mmm-mmming "I Love Michael" ...

Mmmm mmmmh Mm-mmm. Mmmm mmmmh Mm-mmm.

Is it me or does Michael look increasingly bizarre and insane each time he appears? Once again, he doesn't love Scarlett. She's a means to an end. A meal ticket. A sympathy card, which affords him an opening to con.

For everyone who condemned Janine for whispering to Scarlett the fact that Michael neither loved her nor her mother, they must also condemn Michael's evil "fairy tale" likening the child's mother to a witch in a tower, who deserves to be burned. So maybe we have an inkling to Michael's leaving tale. 

Disabuse yourselves, shippers and Luddites, that Michael will commit suicide. Pyschopaths don't. They love themselves too much. However, they have no trouble with killing or causing the deaths of other people, as evidenced in the callous way Michael set Tyler up to be beaten to death. Michael would have no qualms at all about killing Janine and/or even Scarlett, and the image of the burning building probably means he'll try to kill her by setting the house afire with her, and possibly the baby, inside. And instead, a quirk of fate will mean he will die instead.

Good.

And good, too, that Alice the Goon has a conscience. Janine rewards her financially, when Michael couldn't pay her at all, and when he did, she almost got arrested for using counterfeit money. (I hope this money hasn't been forgotten). Janine also thanks Alice for helping her out additionally, and Alice is conflicted, by taking someone's trust and throwing it back in their faces. I hope she's got common sense enough to have listened to that fractured fairy tale and taken stock of what it meant.

The Wages of Gin.

Could this be the beginning of Tanya's leaving line? Sharon Marshall has hinted that Tanya's leaving line will involve 

THE. WORST. ACTRESS. EVER. IN. EASTENDERS.

So now, we see something emphasized that has never been emphasized so openly before - Tanya openly praising Abi in front of a drunken Lauren whom Tanya had helped to puke twice the night before.

As if Tanya's never been in that condition. Jack's worried enough, and the make-up people seemed to have scraped Jossa's face free of gook, apart from the collagened lip, to make her look fey and fragile on the morning after. So now this ceases to be all about Joey - "a boy I thought I loved" (er, no, love, he's your fucking cousin whom you've been fucking like a piece of white trash) - and more about Mommie Dearest favouring Abi over Lauren.

And Tanya's being portrayed as profoundly stupid, which is nothing new. She goes from concern about Lauren getting so rat-arsed that she doesn't remember the night before (after Tanya couldn't remember the circumstances leading up to her night spent beside Phil Mitchell in bed) to shrugging the whole thing off to Jack by saying Lauren is a teenagers and getting blind piss-arsed drunk every night is what teenagers do.

In fact - RETCON ALERT RETCON ALERT - Tanya tells Jack that she was doing the same thing as Lauren when she was Lauren's age.

Er ... I think not, Fink-Nottle. Because when Tanya was Lauren's age, she was married to Max and a full-time mother to an infant Lauren. Now, I'm not above thinking that Tanya probably downed a bottle of wine here and there, just as she was getting ready to breast-feed Lauren, which would have given Lauren an addiction from birth, literally, to alcohol, but I don't think Tanya would have been traipsing all over and getting pukeworthingly drunk at nineteen. Had she done so, Max would have kicked her arse back to the gutter from whence she originated, taken the baby and scarpered.

Like Phil, it's all about the kids with Max, you see.

So is this the beginning of the end for Yummy Mummy? One can live in hope. It would be a double-whammy if,when she left, she took both her insipid daughters, played by two lazy, lousy actresses, with her.

(In Khali Best's interview with various members of the cast, Jacqueline Jossa says she regrets not going ot a "proper" drama school, but then reminds herself that she still can. Yes, love, you can. As soon as the axe falls on your over-priced, over-rated neck, go to a proper one. If they'll have you).

Better episode than most. Not brilliant.

EastEnders: WTF? - Review: 21.05.2013

The Beatles got it right ...

Help!

HELP!

It's what you feel EastEnders should be shouting to the gills at the moment. At least, after the non-performance at the BSAs on Saturday night. But you wonder if TPTB realise that they need help ... desperately.

All anyone had to do was look at this episode tonight. And last night. Rob Gittins is a veteran writer with the programme, having been there since 1986. OK, I've always heard he lingered on the mundane end of the writers from the glory days - your Tony McHales and Tony Jordans. But these days, I'd class Gittins as one of the better writers on the show. He knows his characters, he knows Sharon and Phil at least - that much was shown tonight.

However, as many have pointed out, it's the storyliners who run things on this show. They make up a storyline, plot it out, get it approved by Her Majesty Lorraine Newman, then the story gets divied up into episodes and handed out to a writer to write. There's only so much any writer can do with nothing. I mean, how do you write about a casserole, or a sandwich, or a tin of tuna?

Cleverly thought out, this episode could have been a two-header between Phil and Sharon, confronting her addiction and finding out what made her reach for drugdom as a means of dealing with her problems. But no ... the writer was told to make episodes for some of the most unlikeable, unrelatable characters ever in this soap's history - both versions of the current brat pack, a dinner between the soap's official loser and another new character in whom it's difficult to invest any feeling because she's so ridiculous, and a non-starter who's been given the axe.

Whatever happened to innovation? Lorraine Newman was on staff at EastEnders when this episode was produced back in 2002. Click on the link and watch it. Lorraine should.

Go on, I dare you. Click on the two links and watch this; then come back and tell me that Sharon is "rubbish," that she and Phil have no chemistry and that both characters are irrelevant.

Sharon and Phil are two iconic characters, yet they're being asked to share screentime with characters who - Billy apart - have no likeable qualities altogether. 

Therein lies the problem/

HELP!

The Good

Miss Piggy and Porky Face Down Her Addictions.

For once, EastEnders are doing an addiction storyline that's almost believeable. The problem is that this has been forced to lie dormant at the altar of the Branning family for almost a year. We got a hint of her problem last autumn, and she was seen going to a support group, admitting her addiction in public as Alcoholics Anonymous require you to do. So Sharon has got help for this before, but sometimes you have to get help many times - as Phil should know.

Still, one thing niggles me. You don't give painkillers to help someone relax. Sharon would have had to have one dodgy doctor to the stars - think Michael Jackson or Elvis - to prescribe her painkillers to "make her feel better" and cope. From what it sounds like, Sharon's on vicodin, which is a prescription drug in the US, but illegal here, and is a very strong and very addictive painkiller; but it's only prescribed in the US for stuff like post-operative pain or severe back pain or pain incurred through injuries. Sharon should be addicted to happy pills, like Prozac.

A two-header with Sharon and Phil would have focused on why she took these drugs in the first place, and then maybe we'd have seen what happened in the US. We'd have got a clue about when she returned to the UK and why, where she met John and how he helped her. We know nothing of what happened with Sharon from the time Phil left her in the US in 2006 until she returned last year. We know, but I'll bet TPTB have conveniently forgotten it and filed it away in the circular file entitled "To Be Retconned," that Ian visited her in Florida in 2009, returning with tales of her wealth and Southfork-like spread. No mention of Michelle. Or Vicky. And still none.

And when Ian rang Michelle to tell her of Pat's death in 2012, it's obvious that Sharon wasn't told.

Tonight's scenes between Sharon and Phil were some of the few genuinely good scenes between the pair of them since Sharon returned.

Phil was right, in more ways than one, and maybe it was Rob Gittins's subtle way to get a message across. 

Phil to Sharon: I fought I knew you, but I don't. You're like a stranger.

We know, Phil. We know. The long-term viewer has been saying this forever.

These were pretty good scenes, actually, to see Phil, himself a recovering addict, try to point Sharon's addiction out to her. True what he said: he'd tried on numerous occasions to stop, himself, without help, ostentatiously throwing away the booze and the crack cocaine, only to keep a stash hidden for his own use. Once before, we touched on this scene, when Derek revealed her addiction to Phil last year, and she denied it. It was glossed over then, but it needs to be played out now. Only not too long and too winding and too interspersed with other tales so as we lose interest. Goodness knows, enough interest has been lost in Phil and Sharon.

I also understand why Phil threw Sharon out at the end. Yes, it was all about Lexi's impending hearing, and he didn't want to do anything that would jeopardise that, but it's also something that Sharon needed, the way Peggy shoved him out to deal with his squalor. Sharon wants to lean on Phil for dependence, but she needs to get help and get well, herself, and no one can do that but Sharon.

The only thing I find desperately unbelieveable about the entire storyline is that Jack Branning's rejection would cause Sharon to react in such a weak, lily-livered way. A Jack Branning rejection is cause for jubilation. At least you won't wake up every morning with splinters between your legs. 

Ouch!

Sharon's been dumped before - by Wicksy. She's been thrown under the emotional bus by the Mitchell brothers, and after all this, she came back stronger. I hope she does now, especially since the actress has read the riot acto to TPTB about her characterisation.

For the record, Monalisa can STFU, because Phil didn't throw Sharon out because he didn't love her. He threw her out because he did lover her. Sometimes, you have to be cruel to be kind.

The Bad

Chapter 1: Billy Mitchell's Dinner with a Drag Queen.

Poor Billy. He always draws the short straw.

Suffice it to say that the rest of this episode was one big borefest, starting with Billy's date with the Magic Negro, who looked, more than ever, like a man in drag. In fact, when she guzzled enough Dutch courage (like the putrid woman who gave birth to her, her fat sister and her alcoholic niece) to lean in for a kiss with Billy, it looked like a man in drag kissing another man. Billy's reaction said the same. In fact, if EastEnders wanted to do something really shocking and satisfy vaslav37's desire for more LGBT characters, we could have Ava reveal her true self as a man after kissing Billy. Imagine EastEnders does The Crying Game (remember the willy scene and its aftermath?):-

I can hear it now ...

Billy: 'Ere, Ava ... wossat fing dangling down between your legs?

Ava: It's my willie, Billy.

Lorraine Newman loves dinner scenes - the Brannings, the Mitchells, someone having dinner with someone else, Janine treating Alice, Michael microwaving dinner for Katshit ... so we had to have the second Magic Negro dinner in less than a week. Last week, she unwittingly entertained Sam the Sham, and now she's entertaining Billy, whilst thinking about Sam the Sham.

Kudos to Billy for knowing when he's being had.

I could care less about the Magic Negro, the biracial woman who isn't, the teacher who doesn't teach, the indigent shrieking harpy who trolls the streets of Walford aimlessly every day, as aimless as her character is. 

One hopes the next Executive Producer shows Ava the door.

Chapter Two: The Yoof of Today.

Abi is long past her sell-by date. More and more, she's looking like a little old lady, sounding like a twelve year-old and having the mental ability of a ten year-old. She's totally deballed Jay. She shows up, demands he stop work and take her to a film. He obliges, only to be summoned by Lola.

All this fuss and kerfuffle she's put the viewer and everyone else through demanding the return of her daughter, and when she gets her on her own for an evening, she can't cope and has to call her friends. And what's this resentment about Billy not being on hand? This is part of being a parent. She's convinced the Social she can cope, and as she says, Billy does have a life; so she imposes on Jay's and Abi's evening to mollycoddle her. And along comes Cock.

Of course, when Abi decrees they're staying, they stay. Abi's word is law, and then we get the most contrived, the most trite and most unreal social commentary conversation from these kids that it's unreal. A public service announcement for the Tory party about how kids grow up more stable in two-parent families, and how the presence of a father is important. (Foreshadowing of Dexter secretly longing for Sam in his life); Jay's reference to his Social Services upbringing - and I'm surprised Jase didn't get a mention here, and Abi bringing up the Brannings once again.

Is Lola turning stupid again, after seeming to grow up a bit? Sorry, love, but this is what being a parent is all about, and it's not calling on your mates to come and give you moral support every time you're scared.

What a load of codswallop! Jay's been ruined and Abi is totally unbearable right now. And Cock can just naff off with his man-in-drag ma when he's axed by the next EP.

Chapter Three: Jack, Max and Kirsty - Ever Decreasing Circles.

Nice to see Max and Kirsty have got out of bed long enough to have sex in the carlot portacabin. That must be the go-to place for sex - Sean and Carly, Janine and Ryan, Max and Vanessa, Max and Becca, Darren and Lauren, now Max and Kirsty. Do they ever sanitise and fumigate the place?

Of course, Kirsty's desperately trying to get pregnant and shitting herself about the scan Max has arranged.

Jack's back and wandering around aimlessly, as you do in Walford. Chance meeting with Michael in an empty and irrelevant fight club, and then Jack's day is rescued by seeing Amy wave to him at he window of the Vic.

I've just been struck by how irresponsible Jack and Michael Moon are. They both have Alfie raising their kids. Assholes. Glad they're both leaving.

Chapter Four: Ray Bags Another Man-in-Drag.

You know a character's leaving when they've done nothing for a year, and suddenly, they're not off our screens. We haven't been without Ray since he shook hands with the Afro-Caribbean actor who's stepping up to the plate to tale Ray's place in the ethnic quota which EastEnders denies it keeps.

Ray's all over the place, and more importantly, he's back with Kim. It must be her new lopsided, multicoloured wig/weave, which matches all the shades of pink in which she seems to reside at the moment. Kim's forgetting what a love rat Ray was and how he unceremoniously dumped her a few months ago, but since she couldn't get to first base with Sam the Sham, I guess Rebound Ray will have to do.

Do we care? Well, Ray will be gone in a couple of weeks, and Kim won't, so I guess we don't.

The Ugly

Need You Ask?

WORST. ACTRESS. EVER. IN. EASTENDERS.

Yes, folks, we're asked to endure, yet again, a soupcon, a sliver of the big upcoming storyline dealing with Lauren's drinking problem.

I have a question. Where did she get the money to hunker down all day in the Vic and drink, and drink alone? Surely in a place like that, she would have been cannon fodder for every asshole on the Square to make a pass. But noooooooo ...

Joey is there, also drinking alone, and offers her some fresh air. (Well, his mouth is open most of the time).

When he makes it clear he doesn't want to commit cousin-fucking anymore, we are subjected even more to the non-talented, arm-waving, shrieking, OTT reactions and gurning that Ms Jossa thinks is acting. It's not. It's also plain to see tonight why she's not considered remotely sexy to anyone but pubescent boys like DS's klendathu, who was born with both hands on his member, and asexual retards like hyuck hyuck xTonix.

Jossa's drunk is unconvincing, probably because she's never been drunk in her life and also probably because she can't act worth shit.

Yummy Mummy made an appearance to waddle after Lauren and rescue her from filling her face with splinters when she ran into Jack's arms. (No, Lauren is not Jack's daughter). That begs another question: Jo Joyner finished filming last week, which means she's on screen until early July, just six more weeks.

Do you see a leaving line on the horizon? No, neither to I. It's as if she's not going anywhere, until the last week of June, when the shit will hit the fan at record speed and she'll be off after Zainab in a black taxi.

Helpless. Utterly helpless.

EastEnders: The Soap Where Nothing Happens - Review 20.05.2013

EastEnders' new theme song (after Saturday night at the British Soap Awards):-

Poor, poor, pitiful EastEnders. They went all the way to the British Soap Awards, and ended up sitting on their arses all night long. After a massive social network campaign, which included 

THE. WORST. ACTRESS. EVER. ON. EASTENDERS.

virtually begging for people to vote for her and the inarticulate David Witts for Sexiest Male and Female. Needless to say, the voting public awarded Michelle Keegan her fifth such award and thought some bloke from Hollyoaks prettier (and probably more understandable) than David Witts. Strike two for Jossa. Get the message?

In the Best Actor and Actress category, EastEnders had a 40% chance of taking home a gong, with two actors nominated to the other soaps' one. They lost.

In fact, they lost in every category for which they were nominated, whether voted by the public or the ubiquitous panel. 

EastEnders are saying they garnered one gong, but really, they didn't. The Lifetime Achievement Award given to Adam Woodyatt was recognition by the industry, if not the fickle fans and TPTB who put forward these nominations from EastEnders, for his contributions and continuously good performances in the role of Ian Beale, a role for which he has never received any sort of nomination from the production for whom he works.

That award was more for Woodyatt than it was for EastEnders, as a whole.

As someone who's watched the show from day one, I'm glad they came away empty-handed. And I scoff at the empty promises of the likes of Perry Fenwick and the tweets of Pete Lawson, bigging up the BAFTA and issuing threats of coming back stronger next year. 

I hope Pete is putting his money where his mouth is, because he's part and parcel of the problem at EastEnders. For EastEnders to bang back with award-winning storylines and an increase in its dwindling audience, it will need to cut out the deadwood both in back of and in front of the camera. So maybe Pete might like to make the ultimate sacrifice and go.

Storyliners, weak millennial writers with no concept of the show's heritage or its history, and inexperienced actors with little talent. All need pruning, including the point where the buck stops ... on the desk of Lorraine Newman.

Maybe now, this empty-handed return from an awards show they used to dominate, will alter Lorraine Newman's permanent position with regard to what the fans think of the show:-

Until then, tonight, as in every night the show is aired, becomes the half hour of the soap where nothing happens.

This Town Ain't Big Enough for Ava the Rava and Her Putrid Kin.

Herein lies the continuing non-story of Ava the Rava, the teacher who doesn't teach.

Dennis went to school today, but Ava didn't. One thing the public is left in the dark about ... just exactly what is Ava at Walford Primary? Is she the Deputy Head or just a classroom teacher? Whatever she is, it's clear that Walford Primary allow their teachers to take days off in order to grade papers. Or so it seems. And when she's not grading papers, Ava the Rava, AKA The Magic Negro ...

... is walking the streets of Walford, patrolling in search of people whom she can enlighten with wisdom and advice which she won't follow, herself.

A couple of commentators pointed out something to me about Ava and her clan who've suddenly been sprung upon us. She and her ilk are nothing more than poorly recycled imitations of black characters from the past.

Remember Tony and Kelvin Carpenter? They were part of the original cast in 1985. Tony was - surprise surprise - a builder, and Kelvin was his son. This was a time when racism was openly and realistically addressed, especially institutional racism as practiced by the police ...

As was reminded me, Tony had a stroppy, social-climbing ex-wife too. Remind you of anyone?

For those of you who aren't interested or can't be bothered about when the show was about realistic people, more recently, let's look at Denise and compare her with Ava the Rava.

Denise, as was pointed out to me, was also the ultimate party animal, who lived in a squat with Lucas and got pregnant with Chelsea ... and Lucas just popped out for a pint of milk and never returned.

So now we know the way this storyline is going.

But one thing bothers me. Ava the Rava was 28 when Dexter was born, as opposed to Denise being a teenager with Chelsea. Her parents had put her through university, given her a good education as she referenced, herself, when she was brought face-to-face with Cora the Bora. So what the hell was she doing living in a squat when she was twenty-eight, when she would have been teaching six years? Something doesn't make sense here.

Anyway, Sam the Sham is still hanging around. Well, actually, he'd been given a job, but someone who has jack shit all to do with Sam or his relationship with Ava the Rava butts her stinky, alcohol-infested breath into the situation ... Cora.

She witnesses Cock throwing a hissy fit over his version of the ubiquitous Daddy Issue in the cafe, and all of a sudden, she's issuing threats against a man she doesn't know.

You ain't wanted around'ere.

Oh, really, Cora? I think Ian Beale might dispute that. And Kim at the B and B. And who are you to determine who's wanted and who isn't in Walford? You haven't been in Walford long enough to plant a cold turd, and the miserable woman you gave birth to after you fucked the Klingon ...

hasn't been there long enough to let a fart which stinks. You know neither side of this affair, and from the way Ava the Rava's been gadding about the streets, shouting the odds, demanding that Sam the Sham leave, and when he wouldn't oblige, vandalising his building material and, thus, causing Ian Beale more expense. 

I should think the Magic Negro and her satellites aren't welcome in Walford.

Another observation from Cora the Bora:

'E won't be around 'ere long, if 'e knows whats good fer'im.

Seriously, Walford can't want this teminally drunken old lag, who corrupts youth and bullies pregnant women and women with small children? This old alcoholic bitch is short on common sense, dishonest, shallow, selfish and belligerant. She adds nothing to the show. Here's a sudden script-change suggestion: Let's send her, her alcoholic daughter and her alcoholic granddaughter away for a long stay at a rehab centre in Aberdeen. Soon.

None of us know why Sam left Ava, and none of us care. None of us care, either about Ava or her rude, little inarticulate, unintelligible, criminal son. But there are two sides to every story, and as Sam looks a decent enough fellow (albeit played by the natural successor to Jack Branning ...)

we really should hear why he deserted Ava the Rava. I think it had to do with waking up to this every morning ...

Run, Sam, Run ...

Further, Ava the Rava shows what a callous little trick she is in using poor Billy Mitchell, everybody's loser, in an effort to prove to herself that she's over Sam the Sham and that Billy's the man for her.

This woman is a joke. Not only is she an utterly pointless and unlikeable character, she's totally unrealistic. One longs for a new Executive Producer to wield an axe that would encompass the demise of her, her little Cock, the putrid woman who gave birth to her and any other satellite who makes his or her way to Walford.

As the song says ...

Really, EastEnders ... Khali Best Best Newcomer? How about Khali Best, Best Person in Need of Acting and Elocution Lessons?

The Return of the Native (or Spooking Fat Barbie).

Oh, Sharon ... what have they done to you? Still, at least Letitia Dean is tactful and forceful enough to hand Lorraine her arse (with her head inserted) and tell her to sort Sharon's character.

Saturday night, Christopher Reason took to Twitter, in response to a follower's concern about the state of the show, to urge people to write the Executive Producer with their complaints. His words: One writer can only do so much. 

As can one actress.

I can buy Sharon's addiction to painkillers, although painkillers are dispensed, both here and in the US, for actual physical pain - as in severe back pain, or pain after an operation or an injury. The sort of things Sharon should be swallowing and addicted to are anti-depressants, Prozac, happy pills - not sedatives which knock you for six.

Be that as it may, why is Sharon spooked by the return of Jack? Look, Sharon's been dumped before - and big time, by Simon Wicks, for Cindy Beale, no less; and Sharon literally spat in his eye and stepped on his toe with her four-inch stiletto. 

Why doesn't she do the same to Jack? The front she put on was almost there, but there was no need to go on about Phil ...

Nyaaah nyaaah I'm with Phil.

As bloody if. And she seriously thinks Jack really wants back with her? What was that in the pub all about? I can only think this is the medication skewing her perceptive and judgement, because Sharon certainly wouldn't be that up herself. Her behaviour backfired on two counts - first, striking a nerve with Phil when he sights Jack and finds out Sharon's shouted the odds to him first about her relationship with Phil, and then didn't think to tell Phil that Jack was around. Suddenly, Phil just may be feeling like this is a rebound relationship. Maybe he should start thinking again about the same now that Grant isn't around, wasn't around when Sharon was there before and was the first name off Sharon's lips when she landed in Walford this time around.

I, for one, would love to see Ross Kemp return. There are miles of unfinished business between Sharon, Grant and Phil, and we need to see that.

The second way she knocked Phil was downing some more sedatives and passing out cold, whilst in charge of Lexi, allowing the child to get hold of her illegal meds and use the bottle like a baby rattle. No fear of her taking anything, that bottle had a child-proof cap, but Sharon will awaken to the wrath of the incredible hulk ...

Her addiction storyline, when it began again, was depicted reasonable realistically; but now it seems to be settling back into EastEnders' familiar circular mode. Round and round the garden...

Highlight: Phil's interaction with Dennis. EastEnders has three actors who totally interact well and realistically with small children - Jake Wood, Shane Richie and Steve McFadden. McFadden always seems to have an easy rappport with kids, and it was quite touching to watch him teach Dennis how to repair a bike puncture. I liked that.

The Village Idiot Interlude.

Kim's a scrubber and Billy's trying to sell her the services of legitimage scrubbers. Did I hear correctly or did Ray just suggest that Kim and her masseuse service the entire youth boxing programme? Does Denise know that the place where she lives is a brothel? Ian would really be interested.

Who's Zooming Whom?

Okay, I really like the Janine-Billy dynamic. I like that both are comfortable enough in their friendship to speak honestly to each other. Billy is right. He has to work for Janine, so he has to take her imperious airs and graces, but Janine needs Alice's help.

If Janine is socially gauche, it's because her guard's up all the time. She has trust issues. Probably the only person she trusts at this moment is Billy, but she's incredibly isolated. Pat's dead, and she's missing her. Ricky, Clare and Diane are gone. Her remaining relatives on the Square, Carol and Bianca, are a couple of ingrates and a retard as well. Billy's advice about Janine treating Alice with respect resonated, because I think Alice is realising that Michael certainly isn't treating her with respect.

He's in even creepier mode, sitting like Blauvelt in a leather chair at the Slater house, doling out orders for Alice as though he were an espionage master. Giving the sort of advice to Alice that he used, himself, about being nice to Janine, getting her to let her guard down, so she can insinuate herself into controlling her, the way he did; because the next step, when the guard is down is to make her feel even lower in self-esteem.

But Alice isn't like that. She genuinely bonds with Janine, who detects a change in her attitude when she returns from Michael. Janine isn't stupid, and she's just as much a player as Michael. I like the fact that she told Michael she didn't want to lie to Janine, and the psychopath deftly turned that act of rebellion into something he could use.

I get the feeling that Alice knows who's using her and who genuinely needs her help. For the child, not themselves.

This was the best segment of the night, and Jasmyn Banks is coming into her own as an actress on the show ...

Same Shit Different Day

... which is more than I can say for Jacqueline Jossa. Same old same old. Left out of playtime with "the gang" - a rare moment of unity when the lesser yoofs requested and got the help of the "greater yoofs" just so we viewers could see the full Monty of how many "yoof" characters there are ... Cock, Jay, Abi, Tyler, Joey, Lauren, Lucy, Whitney. These are the useless youthless wonders we could do without, Yes, even Jay and Abi. Jay has been ritually emasculated and now resides under Abi's thumb. Abi sashays around Walford the way she sashayed into the British Soap Awards Saturday night - looking like a twelve year-old dressed in her grandmother's 1940s-style dresses and sounding like she's ten. I;ll bet she wears seamed stockings on her thunder-thigh legs.

Lauren's a pariah. Shame her putrid grandmother isn't, so all the yoof stand and glare at her. So Lauren gets drunk, after arranging a playdate with her sister. One wonders where she gets the money? She doesn't work. I guess Yummy Mummy or Granny Goodwitch subbed her a loan, or maybe it was The Magic Negro.

Nothing's changed here. Lauren's interminable drink story that always seems about to happen but never does.

Let's whisper it ... WORST. ACTRESS. EVER.

Lowlight: Joey showing a completely different way to say "Sharon."

"Shar-arrrrgh ..."

Ozzy Osbourne will never be the same. Here he is looking for Kat and needing Sharon ...

Nothing new here ... move along.

Now can you see why they didn't win anything?

Is This the Wake-Up Call?

As a fan of twenty-eight years' standing, it's ironic that I'm cheering the fact that EastEnders walks away from the annual British Soap Awards with a big fat NOTHING, bar the much-deserved Lifetime Achievement Award given to Adam Woodyatt.

But isn't it a pity and a bad reflection on viewers' tastes that the likes of Woodyatt and Steve McFadden have never been nominated for Best Actors, much less won any awards?

Tonight was a rout by Coronation Street, a programme beset by its own off-screen problems this past year, but who managed to churn out provocative storylines and brilliant perfomances. Corrie tackled female-on-male domestic abuse, and bagged Alan Halsall, who virtually grew up on the show, a much-deserved Best Actor gong. EastEnders had the ingredients for this selfsame storyline (and a possible salvaging of Kat's and Alfie's Kirkwood-damaged characters) in 2010 and played it for laughs.

In EastEndersLand, women hitting men is funny; women mercilessly bullying men for doing their job (Kat and Bianca) is supposed to be hilarious.

All of David Witts's open-mouthed pouts and all of Jacqueline Jossa's self-obsessed and desperate Twitter pleas to vote for her as sexiest female, and all of Khali Best's stereotypical urban black caricature went for nought.

EastEnders left empty-handed and deservedly so, routed by Corrie and Hollyoaks.

After their shock BAFTA, they were brought down to earth with a bang, consigned to sitting in their seats all night long. Let's hope this spurs Kate Harwood into action. The show needs a competent Executive Producer and writers who know their long-term character subjects. It also needs a Research and Continuity Controller.

All very well and good Pete Lawson going alpha on Twitter and promising to go after the winners next year; I assume that means Pete will be handing in his resignation, because now that Chryed have left, Pete's strength, like Samson's hair, is diminished, and he's part of the problem.

Time for Tony Jordan, Tony McHale and Sarah Phelps to return, at least; and time for a clear-out of the deadwood in front of the camera, starting with the Brat Pack of Jossa, Discipline, McGarty, Witts, Fitzgerald and Best.

The Ice Queen Cometh. Again.

News Item of the week has been the revelation that Samantha Womack - the Ice Queen, she of the botoxed brow, Ronnie Mitchell - is returning to the fold that is EastEnders.

Actually, when word filtered out that a big announcement was forthcoming in the middle of the week, I must admit, I thought it would be confirmation that either Barbara Windsor or Michael French were returning, especially since it's been well-known that TPTB have been talking to both. The fact that various former cast members had been approached by Lorraine Newman is supremely ironic, considering that she adamantly declared in two interviews, categorically, that there would be no returning characters.

But, admit it or not, the show is bleeding viewers, and it's accurate to say it's now barely holding its own against Emmerdale.

Womack's return was actually a genuine surprise, considering the actress left barely two years ago, emotionally drained and spent as a character.

As a tragedy queen, Ronnie Mitchell took this epithet to the level of art. It wasn't enough that her controlling father had deprived her of her baby (born when Ronnie was only fourteen) and lied to her for tweny-one years that the child had died, it wasn't enough that her mother had abandoned  her, she went on to lose another child, in a miscarriage caused by her pantomime father, developed a romantic obsession with the local plank, Jack Branning, was reunited with her undead child (the wet and whiney, nasally Brummie Danielle) only to watch her stand stock still in front of a car driven by Evil Janine and be mown down ... nope ... Ronnie went on to have Jack's baby only to have the child die within 24 hours. Ronnie then took the corpse, put it in the cot of Kat Moon's child and simply took her baby. And kept him for four months.

Did I mention after her father was killed, it was revealed that he'd been sexually abusing her as a child and that her mother knew about it and was jealous? That too.

Ronnie was a tragic heroine to die for, but I was never a shipper. She didn't inspire any sort of sympathy in me, simply because she was too cold, too brittle. On the one side, yes, Ronnie's life was filled with tragedy; but on the other side, she was as much a cold, calculating, controlling and manipulative psychopath as her daddy dearest, Archie.

Always remember that psychopathy can be inherited, and always remember that the only man on the programme with whom Ronnie showed any soupcon of sexual chemistry was Michael Moon, psychopath. The two recognised a similarity in one another. Moon wanted to pursue it and quirkily endeavoured to do so, but Ronnie's obsession with Jack was so great, coupled with the fact that she was harbouring Moon's natural son under the guise of her dead one, that she repelled any of his advances.

Don't believe Ronnie is a psychopath? Read on.

• Ronnie had no friends. Yes, she and Roxy were successors to the Slaters, who began the  sibling-as-friend genre (followed by Libby and Chelsea Fox, who continued it); the Mitchell sisters took this sibling friendship to another level. Well, at least Ronnie did. Roxy mixed well with people outside the family fold, forming a close friendship with the only gay in the village, Christian Clarke. Ronnie kept Roxy on a tight leash. She tolerated her sister having one-night-stands, but any hope of a relationship was strictly out of bounds. Even when Roxy got pregnant (by Jack, Ronnie's obsession, and when they were no longer a couple), even when she slept with and thought the baby was Sean Slater's and married him, Ronnie did her utmost to sabotage the relationship, even goading Sean into hating her. But that's not all Ronnie did.
• Ronnie had obsessions. Two big ones - Jack and having a baby to replace Danielle. When Roxy fell pregnant, Ronnie threw the fit of all coniption fits and demanded she have an abortion. Sometime later, she went on a quest to get pregnant, herself, by anyone she could. She slept with Ryan Malloy and then Owen, Denise's wife-beating, alcoholic ex-husband, who managed to plant his seed. When she returned from an inexplicable absence to find  Owen was nowhere to be found (he was actually six feet under a tree in the middle of the Square), she shrugged her shoulders. He was only a means to an end. But before that, she did something even more bizarre.
• After wet Danielle's death, she sought out the man, who - as a boy - had impregnated her.  His name was Joel, and he was a portly, balding, mediocre accountant, married with three daughters. Ronnie fucked him over his desk in his office and lured him away from his famiily. Poor Joel. He must have thought his ship had docked, or rather, dicked. He was living a happy, but mundane existence with an ordinary wife and three unremarkable daughters, when this beautiful blonde from his past gives him one on his desk, and he walks away from a marriage and into life at the Vic. Roxy was appalled that Joel was so unattractive; Peggy was appalled that Ronnie showed absolutely no remorse for doing what she did. She simply didn't give a rat's arse about anyone but herself. She had trouble dealing with Joel's daughters, who - understandably - didn't like her, so she told Joel, callously, to forget them, that they would have a wonderful child of their own. Ah, but then Joel lowered the proverbial boom: he'd had a vasectomy, which prompted Ronnie, there and then, to throw his belongings in a rubbish bag and throw him out with the trash. Joel was last seen, morosely climbing into a car driven by his wife, who was giving himthe tongue lashing of his pathetic life.
• Ronnie's obsession with Jack made her bribe Sam Mitchell to leave Walford with Jack's baby, Richard, thinking nothing of taking the money - £30k - from her sister. She then lied to Jack, telling him that Sam decided against having him raise Richard; besides, Ronnie was finally pregnant, herself, and her child was all that mattered.

I won't bore people with the vagaries of the baby swap, except to say that I wonder if Ronnie's obsession with a baby was not only to replace Danielle, but also to prove to everyone that she, too, was capable of having a child. In the end, the child was a reflection of her arrogance and ego (another trait of the psychopath), and her ego got the better of her with the child.

Ronnie came home from hospital one day after giving birth - a bitterly cold day at the end of December. Jack was abroad, Roxy was partying (it was New Year's Eve) and Glenda was nowhere to be found. There was no one on hand to help a new mother with a fractious newborn. Hospitals are wary of letting new mums go home unless they have a support network at hand, but Ronnie's arrogance was such that she wanted to do everything, herself.

Within hours of arriving home, she had her day-old infant in a pram, in the cold, parading him around the market. Who, one day on from giving birth, takes a day-old infant and swans about in the cold like that? Newborn anythings are born without a built-in biological heat mechanism, which is why they have the little thermal hats and remain in a controlled temperature environment for several days.

Then, after a brief visit from the Brannings, Ronnie puts the baby down in the bedroom, and goes into the lounge and falls asleep. Not on the bed in the bedroom with the baby in the same room, but in a different room. This was in the afternoon. Naturally, she's tired from all the events of the previous day - labour, childbirth etc - and she sleeps until just before midnight. She awakes, the flat's dark, the kid's gone a good NINE HOURS without a feed, and the heating's off ... and the baby's dead.

So Ronnie's new toy is broken.

You know the rest.

TPTB as was Kirkwood at the time, made much of Ronnie getting sentenced for a few years, and now she's out on licence. Many people hope she got psychiatric counselling inside, but I doubt it would help her if she did. Psychopaths are beyond help.

Remember the scene after her confession when the police shrink was interviewing her - that scene where she went through the elaborate ritual of groveling on the floor re-enacting Danielle's death. That over, she brushed herself off and sat back in the chair. The shrink asked her if she didn't feel any sort of remorse or guilt, harbouring the child and living across the Square from the Moons, whose grief was raw for all to see for four months.

Once again, we got the trademark shoulder shrug. Ronnie said it never bothered her. She didn't know the Moons, really, didn't consider them friends and couldn't care less. She wouldn't. A psychopath doesn't have empathy.

Now, she's about to be released on licence and return to Walford, in the most supreme act of arrogance yet: returning to live on the Square in daily contact with the victims of her crime, a crime that did a lot to smash an already fractured relationship. Kat and Alfie are now separated. Alfie is living with Ronnie's sister, and Tommy, the child she kidnapped, is as much with his dad in the Vic as he is with his mother.

I'm wondering how she's going to manage to return. I know EastEnders is lax on reality of late, but they made a point of Kat informing Jack that the police authorities had written to her, informing her of Ronnie's release and asking if she, as the victim of Ronnie's crime, had any conditions to impose upon her probation. Kat pointedly told Jack that she had responded by telling them that she didn't want Ronnie anywhere near Walford, nowhere near her son or her. 

"I may have forgiven her," Kat told Jack. "But that doesn't mean I want to see her day in and day out."

When Alfie found out she was being released, he went ballistic.

Sam Womack is returning for six months. Some are speculating she may stay longer. The actress is contracted for pantomime, which means her filming will be done by November. Blurbs have stated that she will affect storylines during the summer and autumn, which means that she will be filming imminently. That sounds right, because she'd just wrapped filming the Sky soap sitcom Mount Pleasant.

I'm resigned that she's going to be on our screens for six months and that the show will, once again, become The Ronnie Show. I'm certain her presence is primarily to effect a split in the Roxy-Alfie romantic dynamic and to aid in the reunion of Alfie and Kat. Most likely, Roxy will move Ronnie into the Vic, which will conflict Alfie and drive him back to Kat, as Roxy's loyalties will lie with her sister.

She'll probably also figure someway in Jack Branning's departure. That's only natural.

And she'll probably also be a factor in Michael Moon's departure and his dysfunctional relationship with Janine.

There you have the three main storylines dominating the future, bar the Max Branning-Kirsty situation and Phil's romance with Sharon, and if they can wrangle Ronnie into those, they will.

As I said, I can live with The Ronnie Show for six months, as long as she leaves on schedule. I don't think her return will mean she'll leave with Jack. Scott Maslen is due to leave the screen in late autumn, Steve John Shepherd afterward; thus, I think EastEnders' Christmas 2013, will be entirely Moon-centric. Could there be something in a Ronnie-Michael connection? The meeting of two great psychopaths? Who knows?

Mute Banana, a contributor to Walford Web Bully Emporium and Kindergarten, is a long-time viewer with whom I rarely agree regarding his misogynistic interpretation of EastEnders, but he raises an interesting point: perhaps Ronnie is returning to facilitate Roxy's departure?

Now this is interesting. Newman would, naturally, keep any inkling of Rita Simons' leaving a secret, but I can see a dumped Roxy, secretly pregnant with Alfie's child, skulking away from Walford with her control-freak sister back to the safe haven of Ibiza, where she'll deliver a child Ronnie can control. It also leaves a door open for Roxy to return and cause problems in the future for Alfie and Kat.

Finally, whilst on the one hand I'm surprised at Womack returning so soon (I expect a hefty pay packet will come in nicely for the school fees), I'm not, in hindsight, on the other hand. Bryan Kirkwood and Lorraine Newman oversaw the return of Kat and Sharon. A writing room, the majority of whom were totally unfamiliar with these characters, have fucked their characterisations up, almost beyond redemption. Two much-loved female characters are now hated and derided. Bianca, a heart-rendering little cockney sparrow with drive and a business sense, under the past two regimes has been rendered a retard.

But Ronnie was a post-2006 character, and most of the hacks in the writing room know her well. In what will seem on the surface to be a brilliant coup by the beleagured and pedestrian Lorraine Newman, is really familiarity breeding contempt.

I wish Womack well in her latest six-month stint on the show, but I hope she doesn't stay a minute longer than she's contracted. I hope she gives Ronnie closure, and I hope she doesn't return.